So, the last few weeks have been interesting for me. I had biopsies on three pieces of sun damaged skin and all three came back cancerous!!

A Squamous cell carcinoma (on my face) and two Basal cell carcinomas, one on my arm and one on my back.

These things are small and a result of the long summers of my youth spent at the beach surfing, snorkelling, fishing, boating etc. I lived the first 20 years of my life in or on the water - often with little clothes on The next 20 years were spent as a field entomologist in semi-outback Aussie - and again mostly wearing clothes!!

Now I go to the skin clinic annually and get scanned and possibly have some part of me removed.

Here's the result from last Tuesday



It was about the size of a match head.

So, my advice to you good folk is..................................




Now I'm certainly not after sympathy as I intend to live a very long and full life - this is just a warning to be careful in the sun.

Cheers, SB

 

Hmm, 54 views and no replies. Is this one of those awkward silences when you don't know what to say, so you say nothing?

You struck me as a bit of a tough old b5stard Seb, it'll take a whole lot more than a bit of skin cancer (there I said it out loud) to knock someone like you around.

Your sage advice on wearing sun screen is probably a bit wasted on us old buggers; as you so rightly point out the damage to us was done a generation ago. All we can do now is keep a check on things.

I like your comment about not looking for sympathy, you have to come to exactly the right place to not get any of that.

Why did they decide to replace that bit of face skin with ******* skin?

Come back soon pal, the Lindis Pass is calling for you, I can hear it now.

 

Holy Jeezus, Man!

Hey Teeks, I'm the 56th view and now am starting to worry about the odd bumps and blemishes on me!

Best to you on the bi-ops, Seb. Seriously.

Grew up here on the West Coast between Puget Sound and Southern California. Sun worshiping on the water. Surfing, diving and sailing in the '70's and beyond. Who cared back then in those days when we were all immortal and the world was our oyster.

It's strange, when I often now catch myself thinking that I have more years behind me than I probably do in front of me and I'm still, to this day, paying the fiddler

 

So very true Dave, part of my angst about buying a hose with a thirty year guarantee.

Funnily, just within the last few minutes we were talking with our eldest daughter who's home for Easter. We're flogging our asses off to pay the mortgage to what end? When we pop off, our two daughters will each get enough to buy a freehold house (nothing flash, but a good start).

Sorry, off topic, but very timely.

 

"The problem with youth, is it's wasted on the young" - Mark Twain

Hope you outlast the hose.

Hope we all do

 

Before we grow too morbid and morose.

I vote we derail this thread. Sun's out. Water's perfect

Who's in?

 

Yeah, WTF , damage was done years ago. Too late too worry about it now.

 

Had one (basal) last summer a stubborn bugger right on the boney part behind my
left ear that had to be blasted with nitrogen 3 times......nice little 2mm crater left

Now I have two more on my forehead up near the hairline...... getting them taken
care of soon.

Legacy of this ancestry and a couple of beach fryings as a kid I suspect

 

As I said above - damage that occurred decades ago, before we were totally aware of the consequences of our sun bronzed skin!

I intend to be around for a very long time, these are not melanomas, nasty as these are, they hopefully have been removed in time.

I thought the scar made me look more.....................debonair

Cheers, SB

 

Of course you would think that, your eyesight is about as crappy as mine.

Shall we ask some 25 year old hottie if she agrees? or shall we just accept that both of us are slightly deluded?

BTW ; totally off topic. I read this morning in the local paper that Elle McPherson turned 50 a couple of days ago.

What a choice, I can't decide; 1 x 50 yr old Elle or 2 x 25 yr bimbos.

I guess the advantage of the 50 yr old Elle is that at least her eyesight will be as bad as mine. That way I should look as good to her as she does to me?